The International Criminal Court (ICC), hiding behind jurisdictions and what it calls its limitations to act, has left the US President George W. Bush free of charges after the US admitted to criminal acts in Udon Thani, the US secret prison for torture in Thailand.

In March this year, the United States government admitted for the first time that it had a secret jail in Thailand where suspected al-Qaeda operatives were flown in to be interrrogated, including being subjected to “waterboarding”.

Federal prosecutors revealed the details in documents submitted to a court in New York as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Prosecutors also revealed that 92 videotapes made and stored in Thailand of the questionable interrogation techniques had been personally ordered to be destroyed by the then head of the CIA, Jose A Rodriguez Jr.

Reports said that Indonesia’s most famous terror suspect Hambali, or Riduan bin Isomuddin, known as the ‘Bin Laden’ of Asia in an overblown representation of the personality, was also incarcerated in Udon Thani before his transfer to the US. Another elusive but now dead suspect in the ‘Bali 1’ bombing that killed 202 foreign and local disco-goer in Indonesia in 2002, Omar Al Faruq was also at Udon Thani sources said. Al-Faruq was subsequently given the duty to mix with pro-Bin Laden contacts who were jailed in Baigram, Afghanistan.

However, it is confirmed that Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were incarcerated, beaten and tortured by US officials with the help of Thai officials at Udon Thani, this after Thai and US officials denied the very existence of the prison. It was known since 2002 that several secret jails were functioning either in Afghanistan or elsewhere across the globe where victims of ‘rendition’ or ‘kidnap by CIA’ suspects were flown to such prisons for torture. The Bush regime practiced one of the most violent forms of torture against Muslims arrested on suspicion of terror and the ICC has walked away from indicting Bush, citing jurisdiction and non-membership of the US to the ICC. Both fallacies that can only be told by a ‘racist’ whitemen’s club, said an observer to WFOL.

In November 2005, the Washington Post and ABC News ran stories accusing the CIA of using “rendition” flights to transfer alleged al-Qaeda operatives to Thailand. Mr Zubaydah was arrested in Pakistan while Mr al-Nashiri was arrested in the United Arab Emirates.

Thousands of Pakistani citizens, mostly Islamic religious leaders and followers were either kidnapped or brutally killed by pro-US agents in Pakistan since the war on terror began. The orders were directly made by Bush and his cabinet in Washington. Evidence of such orders still exists in the memo’s seized by the US courts well before Bush left the White House hence there’s little reason to doubt the ‘one sided’ and ‘racist’ attitude of the ICC and of the UN in their quest for ‘justice’.

Thailand denied the existence of the jail, indicating a government cover up of the illegal practices by the US. Such practices can take place in other nations deemed independent but that are actually clustered and held hostage by the US government. This is a dangerous trend and it indicates the fact that the US is a colonial power and is controlling many governments across the globe with possible threats of military or other interventions if they do not follow Washington’s orders.

In the 2005 report, ABC News said Mr Zubaydah was first held in Thailand in an unused warehouse on an active airbase. It also said that after he recovered from life-threatening wounds, incurred during his arrest, he was made to stand long hours in a cold cell and strapped feet-up to a “water board” until he begged for mercy and began to cooperate.

In “waterboarding”, a detainee is strapped to a board, dunked under water and made to believe he might be drowned.

Mr Zubaydah has never been charged and remains at the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison facility in Cuba.

Mr al-Nashiri became the first person to be charged over the bombing of the USS Cole while it was in port in Yemen. He was captured in 2002 and held in secret locations before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.

Last month the new Barak Obama government dropped those charges but said he remains a “high value” detainee at Guantanamo. (with input from news agencies)